Here are the biggest analyst calls of the day: Apple, Facebook, Alphabet, Etsy & more

Published Thu, Dec 5 20199:18 AM ESTUpdated Thu, Dec 5 201910:32 AM EST

Key Points

Morgan Stanley downgraded Etsy to underweight from equal weight.
Goldman Sachs upgraded Nike to buy from neutral and added the stock to its conviction buy list.
Citi raised its price target on Apple to $300 from $250.
HSBC initiated Facebook as reduce.
Stifel upgraded Facebook to buy from hold.
Stifel upgraded Alphabet to buy from hold.
Compass Point initiated Visa, Mastercard, & PayPal as buy.
Morgan Stanley upgraded Chewy to overweight from equal weight.
Bank of America downgraded F5 Networks to underperform from buy.

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Thursday: Morgan Stanley downgraded Etsy to 'underweight' from 'equal weight' Morgan Stanley downgraded the e-commerce website company and said it sees slowing gross merchandise sales. "While we like ETSY 's business model and competitive moat it has established, we now anticipate slowing core gross merchandise sales growth to result in negative top-line and EBITDA revisions, likely leading to additional multiple compression, despite the -25% QTD move (vs. the S & P +5%). We are lowering our 2020 EBITDA estimates by 5% as the headwinds we previously laid out in our bear case scenario now appear more likely to be the base case." Goldman Sachs upgraded Nike to 'buy' from 'neutral' and added the stock to it's 'conviction buy' list Goldman said China would be a key driver of growth for Nike. "We believe Nike is a unique asset, where a strong brand combined with a disruptive and innovative strategy are positioning the business for multi year growth, expansion in margins, and higher returns on invested capital. In this report, we present a deep dive analysis across several facets of the Nike model. In summary, we believe Nike will drive growth across geographies, categories and channels, where benefits of scale and scaled omnichannel infrastructure will become key drivers of margin accretive and capital light growth. This analysis increases our confidence in the durability of growth and tailwinds for the brand going forward, and drives our forecast for a sharp acceleration in earnings growth." Read more about this call here . Citi raised its price target on Apple to $300 from $250 Citi raised its price target on the stock and said it saw strong holiday demand for the company's wearables segment. "Last year the December 2018 ending quarter was the first negative Apple preannouncement since the iPhone launch in 2007. In fact the negative preannouncement was on January 2nd which was immediately after the Christmas holiday shopping. Recognizing that investors are often hesitant to embrace "this time it's different" we feel it is appropriate to detail how supply, pricing and demand trends differ from last year and why this Christmas is indeed likely to be different for Apple." Read more about this call here . HSBC initiated Facebook as 'reduce' HSBC said in its initiation of Facebook that the company faced a "huge regulatory overhang." "Growing numbers of policy makers and regulators are determined to take decisive action against Facebook , with a pair of key implications. First, sustaining the pace of growth will get harder: we are cautious vs consensus, which drives our USD178 target price and Reduce rating. Second, Facebook faces a huge regulatory overhang: we assess this separately, seeing it as potentially equivalent to 38.5% of the current valuation." Read more about this call here . Stifel upgraded Facebook to 'buy' from 'hold' Stifel upgraded the stock on valuation and the company's ability to sustain above-market ad revenue growth. "As we headed into 3Q:19 earnings, we noted FB's increasingly attractive valuation relative to peers, healthy user /engagement trends, and signs of a potential stabilization in the company's advertising business. We believed that privacy, regulatory, and antitrust risks will likely remain an overhang on Facebook's multiple for at least another few years, but also observed the company has arguably been more proactive about protecting users' privacy and security in recent quarters, and ultimately we thought the company can navigate most of these headwinds with minimal business impact. However, until Facebook could demonstrate the ability to stabilize revenue and slow expense growth, it was unclear how the company would break out of its 18-24 month trading range." Read more about this call here . Stifel upgraded Alphabet to 'buy' from 'hold' Stifel upgraded the stock on valuation and increasing advertising optimism. "We have upgraded shares of Alphabet to Buy from Hold on valuation and durable earnings growth of the business . We previously downgraded shares of GOOGL earlier this year due to concerns around topline deceleration as revenue growth broke below 20% in 1Q, though trends subsequently reaccelerated as the product ecosystem continues to support increasing inventory and monetization. Additionally, we are encouraged by Google's continued share gains of advertising dollars and see a continued runway for healthy revenue growth, leading us to raise our long-term Properties revenue estimates." Read more about this call here . Compass Point initiated Visa, Mastercard, & PayPal as 'buy' Compass Point initiated coverage of payments and said the industry is poised to see "disruption and consolidation." "We are initiating on MA , PYPL , and V with Buy ratings and ADYEN, EVOP, and SQ with Neutral ratings. We believe the industry continues to benefit from strong, secular tailwinds including a healthy US consumer, the continued integration of software and payments, the rise of mobile commerce, and growth in cross-border payments. We are particularly focused on emerging trends in the industry such as the rollout of contactless payments in the US, real-time payment infrastructure developments globally, and the possibility of an influx of on-us transactions." Morgan Stanley upgraded Chewy to 'overweight' from 'equal weight' Morgan Stanley said it thinks the stock has an attractive entry point after a 24% pullback. " CHWY is down 24% since its 2Q print in mid-September as its EV/rev multiple has compressed by ~25%, effectively bringing it back to its June 13th $22 IPO price. The multiple has compressed by ~25% given concerns around forward revenue, buyer, and profit growth, but we think fears are overdone. We see CHWY as one of the best positioned Internet SMID-cap names given 1) the "staple-like" $73B US pet industry CHWY addresses and secular pet ownership growth, 2) its leading online position and expected further brick & mortar share losses, and 3) at ~1.2x 2021 revenue, we are more confident in the durability of CHWY's multiple." Bank of America downgraded F5 Networks to 'underperform' from 'buy' Bank of America double downgraded F5 Networks and said the application delivery networking company had "unsustainably" high software growth rates. "Our report flags prolonged pressure on revenue growth stemming from a secular shift in demand from appliance-based Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) to software and cloud-based solutions. This trend has not only pressured pricing, but also brought to market new players like VMware, Amazon/Google and content delivery network (CDN) providers like Akamai. We also flag near-term risks to estimates stemming from unsustainably high software growth rates and high concentration of Federal orders in the last quarter which mask greater declines."

Employees and sellers of the online marketplace Etsy stand with CFO Kristina Salen on the floor of the Nasdaq as the company became public, April 16, 2015, in New York.

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Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Thursday:

Morgan Stanley downgraded Etsy to 'underweight' from 'equal weight'

Morgan Stanley downgraded the e-commerce website company and said it sees slowing gross merchandise sales.

"While we like ETSY's business model and competitive moat it has established, we now anticipate slowing core gross merchandise sales growth to result in negative top-line and EBITDA revisions, likely leading to additional multiple compression, despite the -25% QTD move (vs. the S&P +5%). We are lowering our 2020 EBITDA estimates by 5% as the headwinds we previously laid out in our bear case scenario now appear more likely to be the base case."

Goldman Sachs upgraded Nike to 'buy' from 'neutral' and added the stock to it's 'conviction buy' list

Goldman said China would be a key driver of growth for Nike.

"We believe Nike is a unique asset, where a strong brand combined with a disruptive and innovative strategy are positioning the business for multi year growth, expansion in margins, and higher returns on invested capital. In this report, we present a deep dive analysis across several facets of the Nike model. In summary, we believe Nike will drive growth across geographies, categories and channels, where benefits of scale and scaled omnichannel infrastructure will become key drivers of margin accretive and capital light growth. This analysis increases our confidence in the durability of growth and tailwinds for the brand going forward, and drives our forecast for a sharp acceleration in earnings growth."